


There Must Be a Joke in Here Somewhere

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Crossover, Developing Friendships, Drinking & Talking, Implied Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers - Freeform, Multi, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:59:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She wondered how in hell Captain America wasn’t hitting that like a piñata every day and twice on Sundays.</i>
</p><p>Wendy and the Middleman meet Captain America and Bucky Barnes, sidekick bonding ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Must Be a Joke in Here Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a crossover in my life, but I couldn't stop wondering what it'd be like if Wendy Watson and Bucky Barnes had a chance to meet and bond over their respective square-jawed superheroes. Hopefully someone will enjoy it!

Wendy Watson wasn’t sure that this thing they were chasing down the street was an actual snot monster, as in, made up of the sort of bodily fluids people usually horked into a Kleenex, but she was reasonably certain this was as close as something semi-bipedal could get. Its varying shades of green, grey, and yellow were the first giveaway; the fact that it left an ooze-trail behind it was the second. How a snot monster had managed to develop teeth and claws, though, was anyone’s guess, and wow did it move fast.

The Middleman gave her a _tally ho, my faithful sidekick_ motion, just as the snot thing ditched into the kind of faux dive bar this part of the city produced in droves, where hipsters paid three times the price for a drink they’d get in a real dive bar, but didn’t have to use the kind of restrooms they’d get there too. At this time of night, it would be full of not-yet-properly drunk patrons, the kind less inclined to scatter in a screaming mass making an escape attempt while you were trying to nab the bad guys. That always made the cat-herding and gas leak or radiation exposure cover-storying a whole lot more difficult.

“Oh, Beer Nuts!” her boss exclaimed. “It’s going for hostages!” He split left into the bar, and Wendy stopped, taking a second to haul out her middle-gun and a concussive stun field generator. Just as she did, at least three more of the snot monsters came pelting down the street. Aw, phooey.

“Boss!” she shouted as she ran inside the bar, “we got company!” She stopped dead in her tracks. This was most decidedly not good. The snot creature had a hold of the boss from behind, strangling him with its tiny little but clearly powerful arms, though he was doing his level best to elbow it in its...solar plexus general area? Who knew with that blobtacular form. She tried to get a bead on it, but it was thrashing the boss back and forth, back and forth. 

As everyone in the bar ran around in circles screaming, the new members of Team Snot came storming in, and the whole thing escalated into a flat-out clusterfuck melee. This was exactly why the boss preferred to nip things in the bud before they got out in the field. Someone hit her arm and the middle-gun went flying. “Son of a bitch must pay!” Wendy snarled. What she wouldn’t have given right then for a plasma cannon. As she attempted to arm the field generator, she caught a flash of red, blue, and silver out of the corner of her eye, and then one of the monsters’ head went flying across the room. Huh. She cocked her head sideways. It was a shield, apparently, that had decapitated Snot Boy. 

The wielder of the shield, a stunning man with sandy blond hair, said, “Allow me, miss,” and shoved his shield against another snot monster’s gob, then punched the shield hard. It was as if Blondie’d created his own concussive stun field, and the monster wobbled, like the most disgusting Jell-O mold you’ve ever seen, and fell down. 

That wasn’t the weirdest part, though. As she ran toward the boss, knocking down a few terrified patrons, a really hot guy with a metal Terminator arm came up behind the monster and tore off one of the little T. rex arms that was strangling the Middleman, flung it across the room, then closed his metal fist around what passed for a brain-pan and ripped that off, too. 

She grabbed the middle-gun from the floor and fired at the last one, who was locked in mortal combat with the handsome Mr. Shield-Wielder. She hit it, which meant it rather unfortunately exploded all over her benefactor and the last of the patrons making their escape. _Wait a minute. Wasn’t that shield familiar_?

The four non-snot bipeds all stood there, flinging goo off themselves and glancing around at each other. Then the Middleman cried, “Bridge at Remagen! Captain America?” Oh yeah. That’s why the shield looked familiar. Wendy supposed now would not be a good time to mention she’d never read his comics. “Well pop my tarts, what an honor. I’m a huge admirer.” They shook hands enthusiastically.

The captain actually blushed as he wiped more goop off his -- broad strong beefcakey -- chest. “Please, just Steve will do.” He looked at the Middleman. “That’s a nice jacket. I used to wear one like it myself.”

“I know!” The boss was practically shooting hearts from his eyes straight into Captain America’s. It was either really gross or really sweet, she wasn’t sure yet. Wendy picked a piece of snot monster out of her hair. “Dubbie! Do you realize who this is? You’re familiar with Captain America?”

“Sure am,” Wendy answered. She waved. “Hey.” There must be a joke in here somewhere: a Middleman and a Super Soldier walked into a bar...

“To whom do we owe the pleasure of this evening’s entertainment?” Cap asked. “We were in a café down the street when we saw this...thing tearing past and then you two, hell-bent for leather after it.”

“Clarence Colton. But I’m simply known as the Middleman. We work for an organization that deals with threats infra-, extra-, and juxtaterrestrial. If we’re doing our work properly, you wouldn’t know about us.” Wendy still hadn’t wrapped her mind around the boss’s real name, and she’d certainly never heard him use it when introducing himself, the feverish little fanboy.

“That’s a mouthful,” Cap said, but he was grinning. “Almost as bad as Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.” It was one thing to have seen him on TV or in magazines, but real life was something else altogether. Wendy felt like she was being pinned in his dazzle. And his companion was almost worse -- a little rougher around the edges, but sex appeal just washed off Tall, Dark, and Cyborg in great, pheromonal waves. 

Cap wore a navy blue jacket, what used to be a white t-shirt, and jeans; his shoulder to waist ratio made her want to bite her lip. She’d never totally understood his appeal before, but hello nurse did she ever now. Implausibly Hot Dude, who she didn’t recognize from what little she knew about Captain America, was wearing a black t-shirt with a Stark Industries logo -- that had to be a joke -- and black jeans and scuffed-up combat boots she really wanted to get a pair of for herself. But unlike Cap, who was fresh as a daisy despite the ooze dripping off him, Ravishingly Hot Dude seemed weary and kind of tightly wound at the same time.

“You were a huge inspiration for me as a young lad. But I suppose you hear that all the time.” Was Boss actually blushing?

Cap smiled. “Once in a while.” Wendy felt like she should put on sunglasses.

Tall, Dark, and Comely snorted. 

“I wish we’d been able to provide assistance in the Battle of New York,” the Middleman said. “I’m still uncertain why we weren’t given the call to arms for that, although the Chitauri were not on our watch list at the time.”

Captain America waved his hand. “It worked out in the end. Say, what is that weapon your partner fired? Is that a real ray-gun?”

“Essentially. Oh! I suppose in some ways it’s not unlike the Hydra energy beam weapons from World War Two. It operates on the same principle, let me show you.” He snatched the gun from Wendy’s hand and she said, “Hey!” then mumbled, “swipist.”

Over behind the counter, the bartender was holding a bottle of gin, frozen in midpour, in one hand and a glass in the other, never the twain to meet. Leaving the Middleman to fanboy all over Cap, Wendy went to the bartender, took the glass and bottle out of his hands, and walked him over to sit down on a stool. The whole time she could feel Magnificently Hot Dude’s eyes on her.

When she turned around, Boss was explaining the inner workings of the concussive stun field generator to the captain and telling him about the last time he used it. Cap was nodding along enthusiastically. The geekery was strong in this one. 

“This is really impressive, I have to say,” Captain America said. “What you’re able to do with such a small staff and a restricted capacity...it’s truly admirable. I think now that SHIELD is gone, we should liaise with your office in case there’s another threat like the Chitauri. Get a little esprit de corps going among our squads.”

“That’s a splendid idea! Certain parties in SHIELD were previously aware of our existence, but over time, with the discovery of so many extra-humanly capable individuals, communication slipped. It’s that kind of bureaucratic nonsense that allows ne’er-do-wells like Loki to slip through.”

“Not to mention genocidal Nazi organizations hell-bent on world domination. I’d love to know more about your gadgets.” Wendy wondered if he knew how much that sounded like a really awkward pickup line.

Perplexingly Hot Dude rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, God. Here we go.” He glanced over at her, flicked more ooze off his metal hand, and said, “He’ll be at this all night.” With a head-jerk toward the back door, he asked her with his -- burning, intense, depthless pool summer sky blue -- eyes if she wanted to join him out in the alley. 

As they slid past the boss and Captain freaking America, Scorching Hot Dude grabbed a bottle of top-shelf whiskey and a couple packets of pretzels. 

Gathering a few crates to make a seat, he plonked his -- delectable shapely wished she could grab a handful -- ass down and muttered something about “mutual admiration society,” then gave her an appraising look up and down. 

“Bucky Barnes,” Hotass McHottersons said, and held out what Wendy surmised was a regular hand to shake.

She loosened her tie and clasped his hand. “Wendy Watson. Thanks for saving our asses.”

He pulled out the pour spout and took a swig of the whiskey. “I have a feeling you’d have done all right. But Steve never met a fight he could walk away from.” He opened the pretzels, popped a few in his mouth, and offered her some. 

Shaking her head, she said, “That thing made me lose my appetite. For about the next ten years. And here’s me with the rest of a meatapalooza pizza in the fridge at home. Fare thee well, pizza.”

“Nothing you just said makes you want to take stock of your expectations in life?” 

She laughed. “So, how’s it palling around with Captain America? Super cool?”

It might have been the wrong question to ask, because his -- breathtaking fallen angel -- face tightened. Then he said, “Yeah. Super cool. Brrrr.” He mock shivered.

“Are you both super models -- _soldiers_ , super soldiers? Or just him?”

“We’re...fairly evenly matched these days.” The way he said _these days_ was tantalizingly wistful and sad.

After a few more pretzels and quite a bit more whiskey, he said, “What’s with the dubbie thing?” 

“My initials -- WW. How’d you get Bucky?”

“Middle name -- Buchanan. Who the fuck knows.”

Awesome. “God, it’s such a fucking relief to be around someone I can swear with.”

“Doesn’t let you swear?”

“He believes that profanity ‘cheapens the soul and weakens the mind.’ Used to be a Navy SEAL and swore like a...well, SEAL, but he decided to live clean and die boring at some point. I try to keep the cussing off the clock.”

He gave her a -- sparkling incandescent utterly dazzling -- smile and she was pretty sure butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach.

“You guys do this a lot? Chase after snot monsters?” he asked.

“Gangsta gorillas, boy-band aliens, body-stealing evil puppets, vampires...we keep busy.”

“And here I thought Steve’s day job was bizarre.” She remembered that thing with the aliens attacking New York, and there was something else about a robot in Philly she recalled. Not to mention the whole debacle in Washington.

“Yeah. Kind of like a SyFy network movie.” He clearly had no idea what that meant.

Even though Barnes’s metal arm cover was still slathered in goo, it was kind of cool to watch, the way the plates shifted and closed as he pulled the bottle up and down. She wondered if it was a device he wore to protect himself while fighting, the way Cap used his shield. He passed her the bottle.

Pointing at his left arm, Wendy said, “So, that bling on your arm. Pretty swell. How do you get one of those?”

“Get experimented on by evil Nazi mad scientists, fall off a train in the Alps and lose a limb, get picked up by evil Soviet mad scientists and turned into an assassin. The usual.”

It was her gift to somehow always be able to say the wrong thing, and humiliation warmed her face. Wendy took a very long drink. “I’m really sorry. I have a bad habit of speaking before I turn on my brain. I’m my own worst enemy. Every now and then I kick the living shit outta me.” She passed him back the bottle.

“Don’t sweat it. I’m used to it. I usually cover up in public, but we were out tonight with some vets, so... Have to go back and get my jacket, though, before we head home. Think of the children.” But he had a thousand-yard stare when he said it, drank some more whiskey, and stared blankly at the far end of the alley. He passed her the bottle again. His mouth -- gleaming wetly, curving seductively -- was gorgeous, and she wished she had some pencils and paper with her to sketch him.

He seemed to regroup then, gave a little shiver, and refocused on her. “So, you like the plucky sidekick or something?”

She narrowed her eyes, leaned up against the opposite wall, and waved the bottle at him. “Sidekick my sweet Latina ass. I’m the Middleman in training. When he’s done, I take over the job. Fear my wrath.”

“Excuse my 1930s. I’m still adjusting.”

“Whoa. You mean you were actually frozen too?”

“More or less. Mind-wiped, put in cryofreeze. Unlike Steve, I got to get out once in a while, kill people. See the sights.” She passed him the bottle back. Geez fucking Louise, what a story. “Yes, cryofreezing is real. Everyone asks.”

“Eh, been there, seen that. We have a cryogenics vault at Middle HQ.”

He snorted. 

“So were you part of that whole Insight disaster, then? You were _his_ plucky sidekick?”

He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before answering, “You know how he almost died shutting that thing down?”

She nodded, and he raised his metal hand, like a student answering a question in Shame 101. 

“Holy blazing shitballs.” She should have taken a few more drinks. “Then I take it you’re reformed? The healing golden light from Captain America fixed your broken soul?” 

He grinned, pointed the bottle at her, and then took another swig. “I like you. You don’t fuckin’ tiptoe around things, do you?”

“Nope. I think that’s why Boss chose me.” When he smiled he was even handsomer. More handsome? Handsomer. _Head in the game, Wendy, you only just broke up. It’s not like he’s using mind-control rays on you._

“Chose you, huh? Must have been pretty spectacular to catch the head boy scout’s attention.”

“I was a starving artist, working as a temp at a science lab. You know the drill, experiment gone wrong, giant mutant thing attacked, I fought back, yadda yadda. Middleman to the rescue. He liked how I handled myself.”

Barnes waggled his -- thick dark perfectly proportioned -- eyebrows at her. “I’ll bet.” He offered her the bottle again. “So, you and him boffing?”

“Ew! No! He’s like...like a father to me. No, we are not boffing.” He put his hand up in the air, a calm-down gesture. “Anyway, I had a boyfriend till very recently. A perfect boyfriend.”

“Must not have been that perfect if he’s no longer around.” He ate some more pretzels, threw the packet in the Dumpster.

Her first reaction was to get defensive, but she focused on his -- impressively masculine and rugged -- chin cleft instead. _Wait_. “Why are you asking if I’m boffing him? Is this a presumed sidekick job description? Are _you_ guys boffing?”

In response he arched an eyebrow, laughed, but his laugh sounded really harsh and unpracticed. “Not now.”

“But you have?” That was very intriguing. Captain America was bi?

“Once or twice.” 

As if in punctuation, there was an enormous thud from inside the bar, and mortar from the brick wall rained down around them. Barnes shook his -- really awesome wavy long run your fingers through it for hours -- hair, dusted off his shoulder. 

“Crap, there’s more of them. Should we go inside?” She’d much rather stay here and watch him flip his hair at her.

“Nah, let ’em deal with it. It’ll make ’em feel more needed.”

Wow, she really liked the cut of his -- dirty-sexy bad-boy -- jib. She ran her finger around her collar. Had it gotten really hot outside or what? Taking another drink, she let it burn a trail down her throat, quench her suddenly very dry mouth.

“So why’d you ditch perfect boyfriend?” His eyes were filled with a wicked glimmer.

“What makes you think I ditched him and not the other way around?”

“Because nobody perfect would ever let a spicy morsel like you go.” He popped a few pretzels in his mouth. How did you chew lasciviously? she wondered, watching him chew lasciviously.

Apparently they were entering the maudlin phase of their back-alley bonding. “Something happened on the job and I realized that...that he could never be safe if I was a Middleman. And since he can’t know about my job because it’s so ultra top secret, it just makes it more dangerous for him.”

That made him snort again. “Doesn’t have to be that way. You can change the play.”

“I don’t think the higher-ups will be signing off on that line item anytime soon.”

“Fuck ’em. You’re gonna be the only Middleman, you got them over a barrel. Open it up.”

Huh. That hadn’t actually occurred to her. Still, Tyler would always be in jeopardy, even if he knew. “It’s easier this way.” 

“Word of advice? That’s never true. No one’s ever protected that way.”

“Pshaw,” she said, waving him off. “I’m totes cool now. Or I would have been if I hadn’t just said totes. My sincere apologies.” She drank again. “I take it you speak from experience?”

For a few minutes, he was lost in thought, that thousand-yard stare again. 

“C’mere,” he said in a low, dark voice that made her warm between her legs, stretching out his arm. Then he took the hand she held the whiskey bottle in, pulled it up to drink while she held it, his fingers wrapped around hers, his lips touching her hand, tongue flickering out against her thumb. That was hands-down the filthiest thing she’d ever seen, and she’d seen some reasonably filthy things. She wondered if everything he did was filthy and how in hell Captain America wasn’t hitting that like a piñata every day and twice on Sundays.

“Man, I bet you were hell on the ladies way back when.”

“I was always a gentleman.”

“Sure you were. The hearts must have been piled knee-deep in your wake.”

He cupped the back of her head and pulled her mouth to his, kissing her hot and wet and deep. For a picosecond she considered that this was probably a bad idea, since she was both on the job and on the rebound. It was like he really did have mind-control rays or something. And she wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed as if something inside him was kick-starting to life with the kiss, which only made it more arousing. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at his -- disgustingly lush and long -- lashes.

There was a throat-clearing sound coming from the direction of the door that she barely registered. Bucky slid his hand down to her neck. Then a second throat-clearing, and Bucky pulled his -- succulent supple sweet as sugar -- mouth away, looking into her eyes as he ran his tongue along his lower lip. 

Both the Middleman and Captain America stood there, taking up identical positions: arms crossed over their muscular chests, heroic shoulders squared, iron-jawed faces frowning. Bucky just stared into her eyes and said, “Wendy and I are in love. We’re gonna elope. Spend our days on the run fighting crime. You guys can fend for yourselves.”

Cap was the one to speak first. “Congratulations. Let me know where you’re registering.” He paused, prodigious shoulders sagging. “We were trying to...clean up the mess inside. We could use a little help.” There was a slight catch to his voice, and he couldn’t seem to actually reach Barnes’s face with his eyes. Ay dios mio. Could either one of them be any denser? More dense? Denser.

The Middleman just stared at Wendy with his patented “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” face and tsked. She’d rather he used the Danger Toes on her than that face.

Bucky watched Captain America walk back into the bar, so many different emotions flickering over his face that it made her heart swell. Wow, did they need couples therapy. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” He was so...resigned about that. His face looked a lot like Tyler’s when she had said goodbye.

“Geez, Betsy, don’t you know he _likes you_ likes you?” She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you talk to him about it? Maybe, I don’t know, open up to him?”

“You mean emotionally?”

She huffed out an annoyed sigh.

Barnes laughed, that weird, almost rusty-hinge sound again. “Sorry, just fucking with you. Been a long time since I’ve been around someone who...” He didn’t say “gets me,” but she thought that might be where he was headed. “He thinks I’m fragile. He’s probably not wrong.”

Well, that cleared things up. Wendy scowled. “I suppose there’s a certain degree of comfort in knowing that guys have been idiots since the dawn of time.”

He laughed again, and this time it sounded a lot more natural. Then he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “You think it’s worth a shot?” 

“Oh my God. You need a chaperone or something? Because I’m, like, free next Tuesday night.” She grinned. “Do what you did here tonight. Bat your pretty eyelashes and flip your hair. Trust me.”

He stood up, turned toward the door. “Do something for me. Give that boyfriend a second chance? Sometimes being protective is the worst thing you can do to someone else and it’s never going to make you happy, either. Trust me.”

Wendy glanced down at the nearly empty bottle in her hand, then back up at him. “It was good to meet you, Bucky Barnes. I hope we get to work together again soon.”

He gave that -- dazzling diamond-bright -- smile again, and said, “Me too.”

There was no way in hell Wendy was going back into the bar to clean up snot monster remains. Even if it meant a chance to ogle Bucky Barnes’s and Captain America’s exquisitely sculpted asses. She went down the alley and rounded the corner, heading back toward the car a few blocks away. As she walked, she pulled out her phone, and dialed Tyler’s number.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and [reblogs/likes](http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/92408483200/new-fic-there-must-be-a-joke-in-here-somewhere-3949) adored and welcomed!


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